This invention relates to a connector assembly for the edge mounting of a daughter board on a mother board and, more particularly, to such an assembly which is tolerant of misalignment of the daughter board.
In large electronic systems, there is typically provided a mother board, or backplane, to which is mounted a plurality of daughter boards. The mother board may include its own electronic circuitry, may have distribution circuits for interconnecting the daughter boards, or may include some combination of both. In common usage, the mother board has mounted thereon a plurality of connector receptacles and each daughter board has a connector assembly adapted to be received within a respective connector receptacle on the mother board so that the daughter boards can be edge mounted orthogonally to the mother board. There are certain applications wherein the housing for the electronic circuitry has fixed guides for the daughter boards. In such an application, when a daughter board is moved along its guide toward the mother board, there may not be a perfect alignment between the connector assembly on the daughter board and the connector receptacle on the mother board.
It is therefore a primary object of the present invention to provide a connector assembly for a daughter board which is tolerant of such misalignment and is capable of mating with the connector receptacle on the mother board even when there is such misalignment.
It is another object of this invention to provide a connector assembly which accommodates such misalignment in two orthogonally related directions.